It occurred to me that we have had trivial discussions of SFU and UBC possibly playing in the NCAA, but we really have not discussed Canada's version of the NCAA, CIS. It occurred to me that this site should totally track CIS movement as well! To that end I am opening a CIS expansion and Realigment thread that I hope can be stickied up with the others.

Most posters on the thread are pretty US-centric, soI think the first post in this thread should explain the CIS.

There are 52 Canadian universities who play in the CIS, essentially the Canadian government run (or at least heavily sponsored) version of the NCAA.

The schools are divided into 4 regional associations (similar to what we would call conferences):

Canada West Universities Athletic Association (CWUAA) - Canadian Universities West of OntarioOntario University Athletics (OUA) - Canadian Universities in OntarioQuebec Student Sports Federation (QSSF) - Canadian Universities in QuebecAtlantic University Sport (AUS) - Canadian Universities East of Quebec

In sports with heavy university participation, like basketball, some of the conferences have divisions. In basketball, CWUAA has 3 divisions: Pacific, Great Plains, and Central; OAU has two: West and East.

27 of those universities play the Canadian variety of Football under CIS organization.

Canada West Universities Athletic Association (under the name Canada West Football Conference)University of Alberta University of British Columbia University of Calgary University of Manitoba University of Regina University of Saskatchewan Simon Fraser University

ONTARIO UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS University of Guelph McMaster University University of Ottawa/Université d'Ottawa Queen's University University of Toronto University of Waterloo The University of Western Ontario Wilfrid Laurier University University of Windsor York University

QUEBEC STUDENT SPORT FEDERATION (under the name Quebec University Football League)Bishop's University Concordia University Université Laval McGill University Université de Montréal

ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY SPORT (under the name Atlantic University Football Conference)Acadia University Mount Allison University Saint Mary's University St. Francis Xavier University

Like in the NCAA, the CIS does mass realignments from time to time and universities move from time to time. "In 1971, intercollegiate sport in Central Canada completely re-organised with the division of athletic associations along provincial lines and the Quebec University Athletic Association (QUAA) was formed" (wikipedia). It failed during the 1973 season. Reorganizations occured again in 1974 and 1980.

In 1998 Carleton University suspended it's football program. In 2001, Queen's University and University of Ottawa left what was then known as the Ontario-Quebec Intercollegiate Football Conference for affiliation with the other Ontario schools. (I hope someone might explain this. I have a a few possible thoughts about this, some of which are pretty ugly, but for now I am going with the PC idea that with the suspension of the program at Carleton, Queens and UO had only a single game in Ontario in football and 2 in other sports and felt if they were going to be total outliers, it made more sense to be an outlier in a conterence with Toronto schools.)

In 2005 Thompson Rivers University begain play in CWUAA. In 2006, the University College of the Fraser Valley (now University of the Fraser Valley) joined CWUAA. University of Northern British Columbia, University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Capilano University, & Vancouver Island University are scheduled to join CWUAA soon.

Really, IMO, It is time for this site to start looking at Canada with the US as a larger picture. There are very popular forums like skyscraper that draw educated Canadian Sports fans who would be totally into the high concept of conference realignment. We should open the door for them.

I think we should rename the "NCAA conference realignment directory" to be the "NCAA, NAIA, CIS conference realignment" directory. Nested under that there should be a folder for "Canadian Conference Realignment" and in there I would think stickied threads of:

and threads likeWill UT-Mississisagua and UT-Scarborough become independent sports entities ala UBCO?Will Satellite UNBSJ ever be successfully merged with NBCC to create a standalone university in Saint John as per local wishes?Will Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) Torrents & Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR) Nordets ever move up from being golf only members of QSSF to full members of CIS?Will the Université du Québec École de technologie supérieure (ETS) Piranhas rejoin CIS?

and"X large college seeking University status" threads

Canada has an enormous number of large univerisities and a lot of movement. At some point their athletics situation will come together. We should track it. I think it will only help this site grow if we can pull in informed Canadians who can link in articles and news about their univesities.

EastCarleton University Ravens University of Ottawa Gee-GeesUniversity of Toronto Varsity Blues Ryerson University RamsQueen's University Gaels York University Lions Laurentian University VoyageursRoyal Military College PaladinsTrent University ExcaliburNipissing University Lakers University of Ontario Institute of Technology Ridgebacks

WestUniversity of Western Ontario Mustangs University of Windsor Lancers McMaster University Marauders University of Guelph Gryphons University of Waterloo Warriors Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks Brock University Badgers Lakehead University Thunderwolves

A good thread indeed. But every member can start new threads so that is a starting point. If the Canadian threads grow in number, then we can easily create a new forum to put them all in. Sound good? We can start one right away if you really wish, but how many threads are there right now?

Fresno, I'm guessing he is talking about St. Claire College in Ontario. CIS seems to be for universities and a select few colleges that are defacto universities. Colleges in canada seem to mean either what we mean when we talk about small colleges or effectively JR. colleges.

He could very well be right that a Canadian COLLEGE could be looking for admission into the NCAA. I don't have any details on this particular situation. I don't think there is anything that would prevent this in theory, unless the NCAA or whoever more or less considered them the equivilant of a JR. College.

The colleges do play atheletics, but I have not dug down enough yet to give you any kind of oversight on who is the entity regulating their play and how it works.

Quinn, It's your site. I apologize if you feel that was me pushing a direction in which you'd prefer the site not to go. I am only advocating for this because I think it will help the stories to come to you.

I found the other boards using a google search for the material and reading wikipedia. If there aren't any threads here that reflect that subject matter that kind of traffic won't come here and the readers here won't be able to benefit from Canadian eyes looking out for stories.

I think creating one or a small handful of threads under what Canadian readers might consider miscatorized headings won't deliver an audience. It send the message that we just aren't into their scene. This is the kind of site that might naturally pull posters also interested in Canadian Football, but if there is nothing here for them, they won't come.

I know you have a real interest in efficiency at the site, but I would advocate to spend the space to open at least a folder for "Canadian Conference Realignment" or even folder for "Canadian Conference Realignment...and sports talk" lol. But these are just suggestions. You might really not want to deal with non-US stuff and that is totally understandable too.

There is a point where there is too much information to track. I wouldn't, for example, advocate tracking Mexican universities realignment because they don't seem to have any schools pushing for NCAA membership and there aren't obvious ties between US schools and a Mexican pro football league that would create interest both ways like Canada does, but I can understand if you prefer to draw the line at the US border. You track a lot of stuff.

The Canucks are important right now because Simon Fraser and maybe others are coming to the NCAA. It doesn't have to be a CIS realignment thread. Finite can still keep me up on CIS realignment cuz I care. If the thread is called CIS reclassifying to the NCAA. That should bring in more readers besides just Finite and I.

Finite,As far as I know, and a lot of this is from what I can gather online, as well as talking with a lot of people from colleges there around the time, there were no particular animosities with Queens and Ottawa joining with the Ontario schools. A lot of it was Carleton suspending fb, wanting to foster rivalries with more "local" schools, and a bit of it is that for a lot of non-hockey sports, Ontario is seen as more competitive. I'm sure there might be a bit of trash talk back & forth, but I've never seen anything dark as the catalysts for those changes, and that's on both sides of the Ottawa River.

As far as actual team movements, so far I think you all have got everything covered. I only see teams moving to the CIS from the CCAA, and the only possible moves into the CCAA would be either new colleges or some that compete in the NCCAA, and most of those seem to be from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, which IIRC don't have any CCAA conference nearby.

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